Not Delia

Not Crispy Aromatic Duck

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Not Delia
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Ingredients for Not Crispy Aromatic Duck laid out ready for assemblyI recently posted about Crispy Aromatic Duck and how it’s a bit of a faff and expensive to make. Now I’m going to show you the cheat’s version I created.

Why is it Not CAD? Well, for starters there’s no duck in it. I’m using pork tenderloin, which produces a slightly different but equally tasty – in my opinion, tastier – result. Have a look and see what you think.

Ingredients

For two little pancakes – this would make a good starter for one person, so just multiply up for more people.

  • 2 Chinese pancakes, home-made or shop-bought
  • 1 spring onion – finely sliced into strips lengthwise
  • 1 piece of cucumber, julienne cut
  • 1 thinnish (about half an inch) slice cut off a pork tenderloin, and cut into thin strips
  • 1 tsp hoisin sauce (from a jar)
  • salt and pepper
  • oil for frying – preferably sesame oil but any cooking oil would do

Method

Make or buy the pancakes.

Season the meat with salt and pepper and a little oil.

Strips of pork browning in a frying panBrown the meat in hot oil in a frying pan or wok. Once the meat is browned, turn the heat down a little to cook it. It should be a nice sticky-looking brown colour.


A Chinese pancake spread with hoisin sauce and loaded with pork strips and julienne spring onions and cucumberSpread the pancakes with hoisin sauce. Add the meat. Add the spring onions and cucumber and roll up. If you’re cutting the finished pancakes in half, it looks nice to cut at an angle rather than straight across the middle.


A filled Chinese pancake cut diagonally and presented on a white square plateHow easy was that? Enjoy!

I’ve made cocktail-sized versions of this for various parties we’ve held and people invariably love this dish and scoff it up. I don’t even suppose anyone thought about whether it was really duck or not, they were enjoying it so much.

 

Comments

2 responses to “Not Crispy Aromatic Duck”

  1. chinoischef

    I’m sorry you found duck expensive. Pork doesnt taste anything like crispy duck does it??
    I think i find pork tenderloin more expensive in the south of england. Why did you go for lean meat? duck’s not lean.
    Supermarkets sell fresh ducks for about £6 sometimes, otherwise they’ll have them for that price in the freezer. My butcher sells them for £7 so it might be worth trying your butcher.
    Asian supermarkets also sell them. I imagine cheaply but i havent bought one.
    Simply roasting them gives a good result but gordon’s recipe is good for chinese: Cut diamonds in the fat. Rub in salt, five spice, orange and lemon zest. Shove the fruit inside it. Roast it. 20 mins before it comes out spread honey/golden syrup over it. Rest it.

  2. Not Delia

    Hi, thanks for your comments. Yeah, I know that pork doesn’t taste anything like duck but I’m not such a big fan of duck and find it very fatty. I can see why this dish might disappoint you if you prefer duck, but honestly people scoffed it up and said how much they enjoyed it as being a nice change from the more usual party snacks.

    As for expense, the relative price of things depends on where you are. I was in Thailand when I wrote that blog posting and pork, even tenderloin, is very cheap there. Beef is expensive because you have to buy the imported meat to get good quality. Ostrich (locally produced) is high quality and cheap.

    Duck isn’t that common, you get it mainly in Chinese restaurants (where duck is their speciality), and in top hotels (who offer dainty little spring rolls and the like).

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